Re: worst red light debate, again!
 

I explained it in this thread a long time ago. I also addressed the reason it is not going to change. The faster car has a substantial advantage not only at the starting line but all the way down the track.
That's not theory, that assessment comes from direct personal experience.

Re: worst red light debate, again!
 

Bill,
Without a doubt, you are absolutely correct on this assessment. That's exactly what I did. Twice. Once in SS and once in Comp.

Re: worst red light debate, again!
 

Wow, thanks for your honest reply, Scott.
We need more of that here.

Re: worst red light debate, again!
 

Bill,
I did a quick survey of pairs of stockers at national events in competition. Out of 1730 pairs of stockers going down the track in competition, the faster car "advantage" (if you really want to call it that) only happened 24 times. That's less than 1.4%.
You asked why the NHRA hasn't addressed this issue, well, there's your answer. How excited can anyone get over something that happens less than 1.4% of the time?
To be honest, I'm a little disappointed. I just lost another justification for spending a stupid amount of money on always being the faster car every round.

Re: worst red light debate, again!
 

You are talking about two entirely different things. As far as Bill's argument, the facts are very interesting in that the faster car pairings across the entire eliminator field don't support Bill's worse red light argument. However your reference to having the fastest or close to the fastest car in the field (A,B,C,D) is another issue altogether. A SS/A or B car has a much bigger advantage when paired against a SS/O car then a SS/K car would. The speed diffential of an oncoming SS/B car is much harder, and sometimes impossible to judge than someone you can see creeping up on you. The higher horsepower cars are also less susceptible to weather and altitude changes than the smaller engined cars. And the list goes on.

When I strongly believed that the faster classes had a big advantage, I pulled out 4 years of National Dragsters and noted how many times in Stock and Super Stock an A,B,C or D won the event or was in the final.
I bought my Corvette and started making my move from SS/K and L to SS/A and B the next week. I was runner up at my first National event with it in Memphis.

Re: worst red light debate, again!
 

Xx

Re: worst red light debate, again!
 

HALLAUJAH!!!

The King of the impertinent post is gone...

Re: worst red light debate, again!
 

Chuck,
I DO appreciate the effort you put into researching this, and I am glad for your results... I have said all along, that the results you researched, the number of times the car with the worse offense was let off the hook, IS meaningful, but that is not the reason I wrote all this.

My contention is this: Until the (new) "worse red light" goes into effect (maybe never)
You will have inaccurate, skewed, results from a research effort like you just went to a lot of trouble to prosecute BECAUSE the second car to leave had NO reason to try to cut a light. He could leave ANYTIME... he ALREADY had won the race.

There are lots of instances wherein the two cars racing may be "close" Class racers, in that, one may be an L/SA and the other, an M/SA with dial-ins only hundredths apart, and the second-to-leave (quicker car) may not be able to tell before he launches the car, that the other car red lighted, but more often, there's enough time between the green lights that he can. In those instances, he may relax his launch and have a reaction time that is nowhere what it would have been, had he been pushing it, like it was still a race.

In that instance, his probability for a red light goes way up. That scenario doesn't happen with close dial-ins, utilizing the current rule.


When they withold the red light until both cars have left the line...

Only THEN, will we have true "EQUAL RED LIGHT JEOPARDY" and the playing field willl be truly level.

What we have now, skews the chances, overall, in favor of the quicker car.

I still believe that the "free ride (and commensurate advantages that go with a first red light system) should not be a part of starting line protocol for Handicapped racing, under any circumstances, (where the first to leave is not there by choice, but by necessity.)

And Jeff, in regards to the advantage" that the second-to-leave car enjoys with this system, I say shame on NHRA for allowing such a flawed system to persist for so many years.

Until "EQUAL RED LIGHT JEOPARDY" gives an advantage to NO ONE, there is still work to be done on these rules.

I built an H/SA '57 Chevy sedan delivery back in 1966. The 4-speed Hydro I put in it was not anything that ever came down a GM assembly line (in a Chevy automobile.) I knew that when I had to make my own rear motor mounts.

NHRA outlawed that combination, although I had built it to (hopefully) beat the 2-speed Powerglides.

I didn't figure I had anything to complain about when NHRA outlawed that combination, in about 1971. It was a never-never drivetrain out of pickup trucks that was never put (OEM) in a passenger car.

This, I feel, is the same deal. NHRA never intended the red light rule to be a permanent way of handicappping non-heads-up races, but they couldn't fix it at the time. (The breakout rules they fixed...)

Now, they can.... and they need to.

Just my 2-cents....

Re: worst red light debate, again!
 

Very well said Bill! Kudos! Jim:D

Re: worst red light debate, again!
 

So Jim,you going to email or call Glendora and pitch old Bill's proposal?Mark declined,
he says he's not a currant NHRA member.I assume you are.